The Magic Half (10 page)

“Why?” interrupted Miri. “Excuse me, but
why
did she think that—that—he—” she stuttered, unable to continue.

“Hah,” said Mr. Guest, folding his handkerchief thoughtfully. “Can’t say I know
why.
Just Effie spreading tales, I expect. Used to send Sissy into a tailspin when she’d hear about Effie vowing her brother was a killer. She’d say Horst wasn’t perfect but he never killed anyone.” Mr. Guest’s white teeth glinted in a smile. “She had a real high voice when she got mad, Sissy did.”

“What about Horst?” asked Miri. “What did he say?”

Mr. Guest’s bright eyes rested on her curiously. “Horst? Why, he was long gone by then.”

“Gone? You never met him?”

The old man shook his head. “Naw. He lit out before I got here.”

“Lit out? What do you mean?”

“Ran away. Adelie Kent always said that he found out the sheriff was on his tail, and he took off. He stole something or other from her, and she was mad about it until the day she died.”

“Her pink gold bracelet,” remembered Miri.

For the first time, Mr. Guest looked startled. “How’d you know that?”

Caught. “Um,” Miri bumbled. “I heard it somewhere.”

“You ain’t found that old stuff, have you?” he asked in a sharp voice.

“No. No,” Miri said. “I haven’t found anything. And anyway, why wouldn’t he have taken it when he ran away? You’d think he would.”

“Well, but there’s the story.” The old man nodded knowingly. “They used to tell it, how the day he run off—couple years before I got here—he come into Pickus Drugstore middle of one summer afternoon, his face white as a sheet. ‘I got to get outta here,’ he says to Dusty Burdet behind the soda counter, ‘and you got to give me some cash.’ Dusty says no, which took some guts, because Horst is twice the size of anybody, and then Horst leans over the counter and grabs him by the collar. Dusty always said Horst was sweating like a pig, with big drops running off his chin. And Horst says, ‘Gimme twenty-five dollars and put it on my mama’s account afore I kill you.’ ”

Miri leaned forward, mesmerized. “And did he?” Mr. Guest leaned forward, too.

“You bet he did. On the double. And that’s the last anyone saw of Horst Bains.”

“The last?” squeaked Miri. Running away didn’t sound like Horst—it took courage.

Mr. Guest nodded.

“But—but why?” she asked. “Why’d he run away?”

He shrugged. “No one knows. And no one ever found any stolen jewelry, either, so maybe he didn’t steal it atall. Folks like to gossip. Dusty said he looked like he’d seen a ghost.”

“A ghost,” murmured Miri. She sat quiet for a moment, thinking. “When did you say this happened?” she asked suddenly.

“Couple years before I came. Maybe ’35.”

“1935?” Miri gulped. “And it was a summer afternoon? That’s what you said, right?”

“Kids are sharp these days,” said Mr. Guest. “Adelie Kent always said it was a summer day. Who knows? Adelie’s been dead for about thirty years.”

Miri stared at Mr. Guest’s cash register without seeing it. Why would Horst run away? “A ghost,” she said. Horst would run away if he was too scared to stay at home. “Maybe he did see a ghost.” Her brain circled the idea she didn’t want to have, but there was no avoiding it, not anymore. Horst would run away if he had killed Molly and thought he was going to get caught. Effie Fletcher, who always vowed Horst was a killer, was the school principal— someone who would have known Molly—someone who would have noticed when she didn’t return to school in September. I’ve got to get back, I’ve got to get back and stop him, Miri thought wretchedly, gnawing at her knuckle. What if he kills her? He’s mean enough. He hates her enough. He wouldn’t. He might.
Got to get back.

“Whatsa matter, missy?” asked Mr. Guest. “You look a little ghosty yourself.”

“Oh, I’m okay.” Miri took a step backward and stopped. “Say, Mr. Guest, you don’t have any old glasses in your store, do you?”

“Glasses. Sure. Got a couple over there.” He waved his arm at a shelf holding four yellow drinking glasses.

“No. Eyeglasses. Old eyeglasses,” said Miri.

Mr. Guest’s face wrinkled up like a walnut. “Eyeglasses? What for? You can’t use other folks’ glasses. Such a thing as prescriptions, you know.”

“Not to use. I collect them,” lied Miri.

“Huh. Never heard of such a thing. I don’t carry old specs,” he said disapprovingly.

“Okay. That’s okay. Well, thanks, Mr. Guest. You’ve really helped me out. Thanks a lot.” She waved as she moved toward the door.

He watched her, saying nothing until her hand was on the screen door. “Let me know if you find that jewelry, missy,” he said, before turning back to his newspaper.

CHAPTER
11

O
N THE RIDE HOME
, as her brothers and sisters gabbled around her, Miri was quiet.
Got to get back to
Molly. Got to get back to Molly.
It was like a song she couldn’t get out of her head.
Got to get back before . . .

“I’m sorry you’ve been a bad girl all day and you have to go to bed with your stomach hungry to teach you a lesson.” Nell’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “You’re time-out,” she announced to her doll.

“What’d she do this time?” asked Robbie, leaning over the back of her seat. He was bored.

“She spilled her milk,” Nell said sternly. “She’s a bad girl.”

“That’s not fair. You spill milk all the time,” Robbie argued. “And you don’t get a time-out for it.”

“Mama, Robbie’s being mean to me,” began Nell.

“I’m from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Dolls,” he said. “You’re a rotten mom.”

Miri patted her sister’s fat hand. “Don’t pay any attention to him. He’s just bugging you because he hasn’t got anything else to do.”

Robbie made a sound like a siren. “Once again, the SPCD arrives in the nick of time, saving this poor child from her cruel mother.”

“Another child rescued from a life of misery,” added Ray. Reaching around Nell’s booster seat, he plucked the doll from her arms and began to sing, “Rock-a-bye, baby, on the tree— Oh no!” He shook the doll in his hands. “She’s trying to jump! I can’t hold her back! Ahh!” He pretended to fumble with it, and—so quick Nell couldn’t see—he tucked the doll behind his back. “Oh no!” he gasped. “She jumped out the window. Nell! Your baby’s in the middle of the road! She’s dead!”

“Ray!” called their mother. “You didn’t!”

Nell began to wail. “My Sierra!”

“I didn’t do it, Mom,” protested Ray. “She jumped to her death. I tried to stop her.”

Robbie joined in, chortling, “She had to get away from her cruel mother.”

“She didn’t! She loves me!” howled Nell, with Nora joining in.

“Well, you can go right back and get it,” announced their mother, slowing the car. “And then you can walk home.”

“Aw, Mom, we’re just joshing.” Ray pulled the doll from behind his back and tossed it into the seat in front of him, where Nell fell on it with screams and kisses.

“You guys are meanies,” said Miri. She hugged the top of Nell’s head.

“And you can still walk home,” said their mother, pulling to a stop by the side of the road. “Out. That was a rotten trick, and I won’t allow that kind of unkindness in my car. Out.”

“Mom!” moaned Ray. “We didn’t throw the doll out. We were just kidding!”

“It was mean, and I won’t have it.” All of her children recognized the Don’t Mess With Me voice.

“Nell’s meaner than we are,” grumbled Robbie. “A time-out for spilling milk. That’s crazy.”

“Out.”

“Mom! It’s sweltering!” pleaded Ray.

“Out.”

Silently, the boys climbed out of the car and stood on the side of the road with pathetic faces. As their mother pulled away from the roadside, Miri, Nell, and Nora turned for one final look from the back window. “Mom, they’re hitchhiking,” said Miri.

Mom did not seem concerned. “Ha. They wouldn’t dare. And besides—nobody uses this road. They’ll walk.”

“They’re bad,” announced Nora. “They stole.”

“They lied, too,” said Miri.

“They stole and they lied,” said Nell.

Like Horst, thought Miri. But he stole and lied for real. He wasn’t fooling around like Ray and Robbie were. He didn’t joke, even when he was joking. She remembered his thick voice saying, “You reckon old Molly’s got an allergic to glass? Din’t she lose her specs just last week? Seems like glass and her just don’t get along.” That almost sounded like something Ray and Robbie would say, but it was a lot meaner coming from Horst. You could tell he just loved getting Molly in trouble. He probably took her glasses himself, Miri thought. Just to get her in trouble. He probably hid them—

“Oh my God!” she said out loud.

“What?” said her mother, braking again.

“Nothing!” said Miri quickly. “Sorry. I just thought of something. Nothing.” That was it! She would bet anything in the world that Horst had taken Molly’s glasses and hidden them in the barn. She remembered the glinting light she had spied from the loft. She had thought then that it was jewelry, but it could have been glass. It could have been Molly’s glasses! All she had to do was dig them up.

Miri began to whack her feet against the floor of the car. “This is taking forever,” she said.

“Stop that,” said her mother. “We’re almost home.”

Almost home. Almost.

The tires crunched onto gravel.

Finally.

• • •

The smooth handle of the shovel slipped against her sweating hands as Miri lifted the weight of it up and slammed it down with all her strength.

There was a moist, splintery sound as it plunged into something under the surface of the earth and stuck fast, and Miri let out a breath she hadn’t even known she was holding. She knelt to scratch away the dirt, and her heart began to gallop wildly, because she saw that the shovel had cut into a rotten board just below the soil. It was an old piece of barn floor, the wood nearly decayed—all she needed to do was shove up the edge over there, and pull it away from the chunk of gray brick that held it in place. Once more, she turned to look up at the spot where she thought the loft had been. If she had remembered the shape of the barn right, this was
almost
sure to be the place she had seen Horst digging.

She burrowed her fingers into the earth until she found the bottom edge of the board, and then she yanked upward. The slimy wood slipped out of her hands and back into place. Miri took a deep breath, dug her fingers under the edge of the wood again, and heaved upward. This time it came. With a squealing creak, the board pulled away from the gray brick and toppled over.

Underneath was a hole. It wasn’t a big hole, and weeds and spiderwebs and slug-things filled most of it, but there in the middle was a metal chest the size of a shoe box.

Miri sat back on her heels. It was Horst’s box. She had found it. She stared at the box, her breath coming in little pants. She had found it.

The glasses. Were they inside?

She couldn’t stand to look.

She couldn’t stand not to look.

Miri forced herself to reach into the hole and lift out the box. Then she paused for a moment, gathering courage. The black metal was rusted through in some places, and its clasp hung uselessly by a single nail. There was no lock. Slowly, she stretched out her hand and opened the lid. A wet, rotting smell rose up, and the first thing she saw were several large, bug-eaten brown lumps that had probably once been paper. Then the glint of metal caught her eye, and, poking the lumps to one side, she found a little collection of jewelry. Horst’s loot. There was a tarnished watch, the kind you wear on a chain; a ring with dark red stones; two gold lockets; a cameo pin; and a gold bracelet.

“The pink gold bracelet,” she whispered, though it didn’t look especially pink.

But where were the glasses? Miri prodded the brown lumps again and then pulled them out, looking for the shine of glass. They had to be here. They
had
to be here. With the first sharp prick of desperation, she picked up the box and shook it.

Something rattled.

There was another bottom. Miri yanked at the top tray and it gave way, breaking into pieces in her hands. And, underneath, was Horst’s most secret secret: a small rectangular metal box. Miri snatched at the box and wrenched it open. There, lying calmly on a piece of yellowed cloth, was a pair of eyeglasses. One of its thin metal rims held nothing, but the other encircled a fragile lens. Just one. But one was all she needed. “Oh boy,” Miri whispered. “Oh boy oh boy oh boy.” With exquisite caution, she turned the delicate frames over. The lens was clear and unbroken. It was perfect. It even looked magic. Okay, not really. But she knew it would work. She had found her ticket to Molly, and all she had to do was keep it safe. She placed the glasses back in the case and hugged it to her. “Okay,” she assured herself. “Okay, okay, okay. I’m almost there.”

Her thoughts were running around like hamsters, and she tried to collect them. What’s next? Okay. Next, I have to get my new glasses so we can come back. Tomorrow at noon. Noon. Okay. She tried to breathe calmly. “I’ll be there as soon as I can, Molly.”
I hope that’s soon enough,
said the voice in her head. She chewed on her knuckles, thinking. Molly either hadn’t found or hadn’t taken Horst’s stash. Maybe that means she didn’t run away.
Maybe that means he killed
her,
the voice whispered. Shut
up,
she told it.

“On your mark! Get set!” It was Ray, bellowing from the end of the driveway.
“Go!”

Quickly, Miri shoved the glasses case down her shirt. Scrabbling the brown lumps back into the box, she plucked out the bracelet and put it in her pocket. She would give that to Mr. Guest to return to Adelie Kent’s family.

“No way! You cheated!” Ray was hollering as Robbie bolted into the backyard. “You totally cheated!”

Miri turned to watch Robbie run a victory lap around Ray.

“You were already running when you said ‘Go,’” argued Ray. “I
saw
you.” He threw himself down on the lawn. “I got heatstroke.”

Now Robbie noticed her. “Whatcha doing, Miri?”

Miri looked at him, thinking. Should she hide the box, keep it a secret? Should she make up a lie, fight to keep it hers alone?